O'Connell knew well the use of sound in the vituperation, and having to deal with an ignorant scold, determined to overcome her in volubility, by using all the _sesquipedalia verba_ which occur in Euclid.

Professor Whedon was a Methodist clergyman, lank and angular in form and feature with a "considerable sprinkling of vinegar at times in his ways of expressing himself," but, according to our oldest living graduate, "his commanding presence, imperative logic and _sesquipedalia verba_, always used with mathematical precision, hammered truth into us and clinched it."